The present invention relates to refrigerant recovery system for recovering refrigerant from the refrigeration circuit of an air conditioner for a motor vehicle, for example, and relates to a recovery tank for the system.
There are a conventional refrigerant recovery system of the suction pump type and a conventional refrigerant recovery system of the cooling type for recovering refrigerant from refrigerant using machines. The refrigerant recovery system of the suction pump type includes a compressor so that refrigerant from a refrigerant using machine is forcibly sucked and compressed to be cooled at the room temperature so as to be recovered. Since the pressure of the refrigerant needs to be increased by the compressor and the refrigerant becomes high-pressure gas after the pressure increases, there is a problem in handling the refrigerant recovery system of the suction pump type. In the refrigerant recovery system of the cooling type, the pressure and temperature in a recovery tank are made low and a gaseous refrigerant is then liquefied. For that reason, the latter system is more advantageous in handling than the former in which the high-pressure gas is handled. In the refrigerant recovery system of the cooling type, the recovery tank is cooled by a refrigerator or a cooling means, the gaseous refrigerant is introduced into the tank so as to be cooled and liquefied, and the liquefied refrigerant is sent therefrom to a storage vessel through a recovery pump and stored in the vessel. For that reason, the system includes the recovery tank, the refrigerator, the recovery pump and the storage vessel, and therefore has a problem that the size and weight of the system are large.